Currently Bolt has about 130 million USD in foreign gross. To double its domestic gross it would need 226 million foreign gross and I doubt it will get there or even 200 million abroad. Moreover, the film cost 150 million to make. Studios get about half the gross box office take and the 150 million probably doesn't take into consideration promotional costs - so Bolt's total gross would have to be over 400 million to make a profit in theaters, which definitely won't happen. However, it could reach profitability if DVD and merchandise sales are good. The latter was what made "Cars" a mega-profitable even though that film didn't do so well at the box office, relative to its production costs. - Tasman

Actually that "gross twice your budget to breakeven" is misquoted/misunderstood. That it's quoted so much to prove a movie's not making money shows a lack of understanding about how releases generate revenue.

It's an old rule of thumb, and generally works only if your film plays out kind of "evenly". But film grosses/nets are figured on a sliding scale. The distributor recoups a lion's share of receipts the first few weekends, and then the percentage "slides" gradually week by week to the favor of the exhibitor (theaters). So if a movie makes most of its big money in the first few week, that "twice your budget" thing doesn't quite work.

I've not looked at the week by week receipts for BOLT, but I'd bet that most of its money came in the first four weeks. And most of THAT money went to Disney/BV. So they're probably not crying.

I take issue with describing Twilight as a "horrible episode of Dawson's Creek that stared vampires". First, there were no horrible episodes of Dawson's Creek thanks to future Fringe star Pacey. Second, Dawson's Creek with vampires would have rocked!! I mean, JJ Abrams asked "what if Felicity was a spy..." and Disney received the awesomeness of Alias. Imagine the Buffy/Dawson crossovers...Third, Twilight is cool and making fun of it just makes you seem old and disconnected (just like the Disney guys who scheduled Bolt).

To anonymous who thinks I have a poor understanding of how much a studio gets from the total gross: you are right that there is a sliding scale where the studio gets almost all the money from the first week or two and then less thereafter. The studio's share of the revenue is called the "box office rentals." The rentals as a percentage of total gross from domestic theaters is greater than the share from foreign theaters. Nowadays, as compared to the past, films tend to make more money in the first few weeks than later weeks - and this increases studio share. However nowadays as well, a greater percentage of revenue comes from abroad. In the past, a majority of an American movie's total gross would come from the US. Nowadays, 2/3 or more come from abroad. In the past, when rental figures were more readily available - on average about 55 % of the total gross would come from the US and the studio would get about 55% - 65% of this. The studio would get about 45% or so of the foreign gross. My guess based on the two changes that have happened over the past decade or two - box office being lopsided to the first few weeks, but also increased percentage of foreign revenue - is that Disney's share of revenue from Bolt is under 60%. Of course I am happy to be proven wrong with some exact figures - if you or anyone else has these, I would love to see. Cheers - Tasman.

"Third, Twilight is cool and making fun of it just makes you seem old and disconnected (just like the Disney guys who scheduled Bolt)."

First, I've seen "Twilight" and it is an utter piece of crap. My opinion, of course. But based on the tweens that have seen it can probably count the number of movies they've EVER seen on their fingers and toes and I've seen thousands of films, I'd say I know more about quality than they do. Again, my opinion. But I actually suffered through this film just so I could understand it... and I still couldn't. It's badly lit. It's got a horribly lame script with even worse dialog. It looks like the actors were applying to an audition for "Heroin Sheek" vampires...

To the fellow who tried to explain rentals to this industry professional... once again, it sounds like you're getting your stats from wikipedia.

The truth is, every deal is different in this business. Every distributor negotiates anew with exhibitors their deal for virtually every single movie. This because studios' track records are constantly in flux. If they've had a string of hits, that distributor/studio can leverage a higher early percentage on the sliding scale. For a distrib like BV, this can be, on some tentpole movies, in the neighborhood of 75% percent (or better) for the first few weeks of release.

Disney's animated features are premium releases for exhibitors, despite their recent cache at the box office. They are still "rare" and treated as special by Disney and by exhibs. Also, though it's technically illegal to leverage one film's release pattern/deal with another, the distribs DO strongarm exhibitors in their dealings, making it clear - "you won't get X tentpole movie at Thanksgiving if you don't carry Z little romantic comedy in August."

And they can leverage those percentages as well.

So though you might be right on your averages, the reality is, Disney probably did extremely well in terms of their domestic on BOLT.

Yeah, foreign rentals - you're correct - they are smaller in terms of percentages but DO account for about 60% (on average) of total box office these days. But when a studio OWNS its distributor abroad, as Disney does in most markets (on most of their pictures, anyway), they get a larger share of the gross there than other studios who use distribution companies (for instance, Uni and Paramount and others will use BV Intl, and very occasionally, vice versa).

Every film is structured differently, depending on where the financing is coming from, so that sometimes affects how a distributor overseas will split/return percentages to the production company.

Frankly, the whole thing's a mess, the rule of thumb is on a very large thumb.

Every deal is different. Disney did okay on BOLT. And their foreign take will treat them pretty well. They're not losing money on this film, even before DVD.

Mr anonymous "industry professional": let me ask you directly then - what are the box office rentals for Bolt thus far? Being an industry insider I am sure you can quote us an exact number, so we don't have to debate hypotheticals. Till then, I guess I'm stuck with wikipedia. Thanks much - Tasman.

Anyone who is interested in the topic of box office rentals, can read this article by ANOTHER industry professional. I admit this article is a whopping three plus years old, so perhaps there has been some sea change since that time - but it analyzes how much Disney actually received from one of its films. You can copy and paste the link if interested. Cheers - Tasman.